


Toy Soldiers

by thejamesoldier



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I promise lol, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn, Trauma, World War II, also stucky best friends since childhood is there too duh, best friends since serum injection lol, buckle in fam lol, i mean we know how the Cap trilogy goes, it gets dark at times yall just fair warning, starts during CA:FA and follows the MCU timeline till endgame w/some artistic license, supersoldier!reader au, things get fucked up but yall already knew that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 22:20:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejamesoldier/pseuds/thejamesoldier
Summary: Steve and the reader are both part of Erskine’s serum program. They both become national heros. The reader ends up falling for one James Barnes when you help Steve rescue the captured 107th. Prepare for the longest, most angsty love story ever.





	Toy Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> I know I really really shouldn’t be starting another fic, but I got an idea and couldn’t resist! Sue me.

_Brooklyn Antiques._

The shadow of the seemingly normal shop looming before you did very little to placate the deadly knives tumbling around furiously in your stomach. Your tiny chest rattles as you breathe in, a slight wheeze whistling through your tired lungs and tight throat. The agent who escorted you to this place side eyes you at the sound, he hadn’t made any attempt at conversation the whole car ride. Only the tinkling noise of you trying to breathe filled the air of the cab.

The semi silence would have been doable if you hadn't been as scarlet as a ripe tomato the entire time.

God do you hate your body; its a weak, frail, sickly cage. Your father always teases you that God made a mistake and gave you the wrong soul; ‘_Surely someone with your physicality should be more submissive and obedient like the gentle-woman you were born to be_’.

Your father is one of New York's elite. No mother. Your father never told you anything about your mother, actually. Not even a name. So you grew up a wealthy, educated young lady with a nurse as a pet that followed you around like the puppy you always wanted but never got (the doctors said you were too frail to handle having a pet; the animal would get you sick). You had little in the way of friends as you struggled attending anything that required extensive movement, and absolutely no suitors despite the allure of your father’s wealth. You knew if you did ever get married it would be because the man wanted your money and you would be a trinket, a small burden to always carry around and have to be civil towards. Your husband would probably not hide the affair he would most likely be having a month into your marriage, since it would be made clear from the start that you were only married for business.

“Ma’am?”

You're ripped from your quickly souring imaginations. The government agent is standing half in the doorway of the shop and half out, one polished Italian leather shoe holding the glass door open for you, waiting. He's looking down at you (literally) with a weary caution he's pretending is a mask of polite indifference. It's an expression you're used to. When you space out it tends to disturb people, you imagine they think you're not all there upstairs considering all the other standard health you lack. You don't respond but you do make your way past him, discreetly taking in his pressed suit and professionally combed hair. He’s handsome, in a normal mundane kind of way. Though you know you have no right to be judging people’s attractiveness when you yourself are a shriveled shrimp now soon to be upgraded to a science experiment.

Splendid.

* * *

Steve is currently attempting not to shit his pants.

Everyone in the room is staring up at him on the balcony landing of the metal stairs he’s yet to descend. The room is full of metal machines with blinking lights making soft whirring noises, wires twist and turn everywhere. It’s gone completely silent. He can feel Peggy beside him, her presence gives him the strength to tear his eyes away from all the people in lab coats and gloves and chemistry goggles, and force his clumsy feet to work their way down the stairs. He silently congratulates himself for getting to the last step without his knees buckling and sets himself into the middle of the room where Dr. Erskine greets him with a warm smile. That smile, like Peggy, gives Steve strength.

He wishes Bucky were here. But then maybe not, he can practically hear Bucky’s voice in his head screaming at him, _‘What do you think you’re doin’ punk?! You get your scrawny keister back home so I can personally beat the stupid outta you!’_

Steve smiles and feels his strength immortalize.

* * *

You're currently attempting not to shit your panties.

The agent doesn’t wait for you to take in the commotion of lab coats and whirring and voices below, he just leads you with a firm hand on your paper thin back when you hesitate down a metal set of stairs. You find yourself becoming deeply self conscious of the fact that the nobs of your spine keep poking against the agent's wide warm palm. Your embarrassment causes your back to break out in a cold sweat. You're lead through a hurricane of people till you reach Dr. Erskine, the eye of the storm, who is smiling and talking with a person you don't recognize. A young man in fact, who is maybe a couple inches taller than you with blonde hair peeking out from his military cap, pale skin, and a body that matches yours in ailment and frailty.

As you approach they both stop mid sentence and look at you.

“Miss Y/n Y/l/n, how are you feeling today?" Dr. Erskine says in a warm enveloping tone that helps you forget for a second where you are and what, exactly, you're about to do. You flinch when a flash goes right beside you, and when you turn a whole set of cameras clamor to press in closer to your face, the press unrelenting. "Ignore them." You follow Dr. Erskine’s instructions and do in fact attempt to ignore them and just hold on to the tether of Erskine’s gentile irises.

You try your hand at a reassuring smile in response, being very practiced in the art of deception your whole life ('Are you okay?' 'Yes I'm fine.' 'You still sick darlin?' 'I'm recovering.' 'When's that nasty cold gonna loosen it's hold on ya?' 'The doctor says soon.' 'You eating alright? You look a little thin.' 'I appreciate your concern.'), and give a nod for good measure. Erskine doesn’t look too convinced but allows you to switch your gaze over to the young man that seems to be your exact body twin if you were a man standing beside Erskine in a military uniform. Huh. He’s a soldier? However did he manage to get 1A on his enlistment form?

“Y/n this is Mr. Steven Rogers, Steven this is Miss Y/n Y/l/n,” Erskine introduces, the scientist's accent rolling your names in a pleasant way, then he adds, "Your partner." 

“Partner?” Both you and Mr. Rogers question in some what startling coincidental synchronization before you can finish properly acquainting. 

You glance at each other in the wake of the oddity, both pairs of your sunken cheeks aflame with a scathing blush as you return your attention back to Erskine. Erskine looks vaguely amused, admiring the two tiny heroes before him.

“You both will undergo the effects of the serum together. You’ll be put in the same,” Erskine waves a dismissive hand at the daunting large metal _tomb_ cracked open in the middle of the nest of wires and blinking machines.

You attempt to take a calming deep breath through shaky lungs while you hear the undeniable click of Mr. Rogers throat as he gulps next to you.

“Do not worry, you have each other to face this. Two good hearts are stronger than one.” Dr. Erskine says pointing to both your little chests with a finger.

You both take quick mismatched side glances at each other at his comment, but force your focus back to Dr. Erskine when you catch each other staring. _Ugh_, you think, _he's awkward like me. Just swell. _

“I truly am sorry for the peanut gallery up there,” Erskine says after a beat of silence, rolling his eyes up at the mini audience of government spectators sitting behind a glass wall crowning the top of the room. “I wanted this to be private but no, the government wants to watch. They say, our money, our experiment.”

* * *

Their two scrawny bodies are laid inside the roomy metal tomb obviously built for bodies much larger than their own.

Its darker than he imagined it would be with the tomb closed and set upright. The window at the top is bolted quite a few heads above his and the light that filters in is weak and gloomy. Steve can feel a shy warmth radiate off of the woman laying beside him with a couple feet or so between you. He’s never been so close to a dame before, let alone this close to a dame as naked as she is. She has a single white band of cloth wrapped around where her chest should be (she's as flat as him) and khaki pants that match his. Your pants are at least five times as big as their normal sizes are, so their little bottoms swim in the extra material.

“You nervous?”

Steve has the urge to turn and face her at her quiet question, but keeps his head facing the metal in front of him. He doesn't want to make her feel any more naked or scrutinized than she probably already feels.

“I’m scared.” Steve responds honestly and without shame. He hears her head turn to face him. “But I’d rather die trying to make a difference than suffer on in this body.”

Steve jumps as much as he can with needles stuck into almost every inch of his body, when he feels her fingers curl gently around his own. Their bony hands shake as they clasp together when loud clunking and hissing noises fill the chamber, different things from the outside are being methodically hooked up to the metal tomb by the scientists running the experiment. A thin fog starts filtering into the air you two breathe.

“My father made me do this.” She whispers in breathless terror as the whirring in the machine starts up. Steve does look at her at that. “He thinks I’m not good for anything else.”

As the disturbing reality that she has been forced to do this sets in (and the fact that Erskine probably doesn't know this or he'd have never put her in the trial) Steve can't help but pick up the smooth tone of her voice, the clean educated accent of an elite New Yorker making music of the commotion of noise the tomb they’re in is spitting out. He carefully observes her pretty profile. There is so much power behind the delicate mask of her face, so much potential and bravery. Steve realizes that even though she’s this beautiful, magnetic person, so similar to him in spirit and physicality, he has this unyielding desire to simply be her friend. Her brother, her right hand, her shield. He wants to protect her. And now he knows how Bucky feels because Steve guesses that, like him, she doesn’t want protecting.

“Stop staring at me like that,” She says and Steve snaps his head back forward. Embarrassment lights a fire of scarlet all the way from his ears down his chest. She huffs as Steve tries to squirm his fingers out of hers, “No I want your hand, just stop staring at me like I’m a glass sculpture you need to wrap in cotton.”

"We can stop. You shouldn't do this if you don't want to." Steve says firmly, unwilling to be apart of this if she's not consented to it. 

She shakes her head, defeated, "My father is right, what else would I be good for." 

"You shouldn't think like that." Steve rebuffs but sighs after a moment, "Though I know how you feel." 

Steve, a bit bashfully, finds her gaze as she squeezes his hand harder.

“If we make it through this," She whispers like a secret, he can barely hear her over how loud its gotten so he strains his ears to catch every precious word, "I hope we become good friends.” She's smiling at him across the expanse of space between them and its the bravest thing Steve's ever seen.

A knock on the outside of the metal tomb wrenches both of their attention back to reality.

“Steven, Y/n? Can you hear me?” Erskine calls. 

“It’s probably too late to go to the bathroom right?” Steve says out of force of habit, the smart remarks never seeming to filter themselves out of his system even when he’s drowning in fear and courage.

* * *

You wish you could smile at Steven's comment, at his effort to lighten the mood, but your face, heart, body, and soul are seized with anxiety. You clutch Steven’s fragile hand even tighter and hope you can somehow borrow some of his courage, take a little of it greedily for yourself.

You can do this.

You close your eyes.

You can do this.

You hear Dr. Erskine say, ‘We will proceed.’ before the pain starts.

You both break together. Your screams shrieking and clashing in a sickening harmony of pain. You writhe as much as the needles and straps allow you to as the inexorable agony continues to burn in your cells and fry them alive. You manage to hear a commotion of orders and yelling on the outside over the screeching rage of your own pain. You catch Erskine’s ‘Stark cut the reactors!’ and Peggy’s ‘Shut it down!’

“_NO!_” Steven cries beside you, breathless with what little air is left in his vibrating lungs.

“We can do this!” You continue for him when he can't manage the rest. His hand grips yours, reminding you he's there, a physical but silent sign of confirmation.

The pain only increases but neither of you scream anymore. Numb. Determined. Hopelessly hopeful you can do something worthwhile with your lives. You become each other's creed as you _take_ _it_ side by side.

There is white. Then there is nothing.

* * *

**Months Later**

The sound of the band warming up and the muted roar of a full house filters in through the red stage curtains.

You help adjust Steve’s cotton helmet headpiece, noticing it’s a little askew on his head. He straightens out your red and white striped skirt that matches his ridiculous body suit. Your costumes are terribly cheap but eye catching all the same. You both sigh through your noses, exhausted. And not the physical exhaustion, because you couldn’t really get tired anymore, but mental exhaustion of doing night after night, city after city, show after show.

“How many more cities?” Steve asks as your hands fall from where they were fidgeting with his head piece.

“Too scared to check,” You respond as lightly as you can manage, trying at humor and failing miserably. 

You're both tired of doing nothing, of wasting Erskine's gift. The doctor's death still haunts both of you, and the feeling that you're doing nothing but performing in tight flashy outfits while people are laying down their lives haunts you too. Steve and you keep to yourselves despite all the propaganda and stardom. You two hate the fame, quite frankly. You're not even keen on befriending the chorus girls that travel with you. You're both carted around the US like dolls on display. Steve for the lusting women and you for the lusting men. It’s a double punch that takes America by storm. 

What’s worse is that you're sold to the public like a couple, a package deal, like you're together romantically when its so far from your actual relationship. You're told ‘its just for the crowd’, ‘it sells more bonds’, ‘you don’t have to kiss or anything’. You especially are made less of Steve’s equal and more as a fighting dame or wife or some strange bullshit. Your body took to the serum’s effects differently than Steve’s did. You're much taller for sure, about six feet to be exact, but you're not bulky with muscle like Steve’s body is bloated with. You're body is more like a dancer’s; strength and agility packed into lean limbs and long muscles. You're exactly Steve’s equal in ability, though no one is comfortable acknowledging that except Steve. 

All the men that cat call and ogle you in the ridiculously revealing eye candy outfit you're forced to wear, you could take out in less than a second. That’s the only comfort you hold on to, and the fact that Steve acts like the older brother you never had defending your honor and what not. It’s nice. You two are solely dependent on each other for sanity, neither of you can imagine how lonely and terrible it’d be if you had to do this by yourself or if they ever separated you. Which is something your manager constantly threatens you with when you don't do as you're told. 

Someone starts the opening speech to the show on the other side of the curtain. The audience hushes.

“And now to introduce America’s favorite couple, and my _personal_ friends," You had no idea who the guy is but they always say that, everyone always claims to know you, "Captain America! And don't forget his lovely partner in crime, Miss America!”

“That’s our cue soldier,” You say, already over it as you link arms, turn on your fake smiles, wait for the music cue, and march out together to sell some more damned war bonds to the applause and roar of the crowd.

* * *

You're on the front lines.

The men that sit before you are dirty, injured, tired, and not having Steve and your speech about punching Ol’ Adolf in the jaw at _all_. You couldn’t exactly blame them, but it wasn’t Steve or your fault you were here either. The men begin to resort to name calling and slang insults, throwing things at you as well. This unpleasantness is aimed mostly at Steve, but the men do whistle and howl at you just as disrespectfully. Steve placates them by offering to call the girls back up to repeat their number, and turns to quickly slink away. You try to go with him, wanting absolutely nothing to do with the horny men whistling and cheering loudly at the girls as they come back on stage, but your manager grips you hard by the elbow as you take the steps down from the stage by threes. He tries to shove you back up to follow the chorus line --

You smirk _down_ at him.

He physically can’t make you go because you're one hundred times stronger than him. You don't budge against all his strength. Easily, you twist your arm out of his grip and walk past him to follow Steve. Your manger flings a nasty name at your back but you don't care as you tread after your twin supersoldier, easily catching up to him striding a few paces in front of you. Steve’s got his usual pinched mask of unhappiness on his face and you quickly re-route to grab his sketch book and pencil from his little bag of things in the makeshift dressing room tent you shared. When you've retrieved what you playfully dubbed ‘Steve’s Happy Kit’, you find him sitting on a wooden step just under the cover of one the tents set up near the stage. The reach of the tent above him guards Steve from the drizzle of rain just starting to come down.

You sit next to him, shoulder to shoulder, with a familiar intimacy only best friends can accomplish. After a moment of shared silence, you hand him the sketchbook and pencil. He takes it gently in his big hands, looking up and giving you a private thankful smile, before opening up the cover and flipping carefully to a blank page. You settle your head on his shoulder, liking the feel of the muscles in his arm working under your cheek as he sketches. You both watch as his artist fingers create art from blank paper.

Eventually he draws two monkeys in Steve and your costumes riding a unicycle, the monkey with your costume sits on top of Steve’s shoulders, both are juggling random things and both have sad expressions on their cartoonish faces. The rain, now coming down harder, splashes a few complimentary raindrops onto the sketch.

* * *

Peggy appears, gives the two brooding supersoldiers a pep talk, so much as mentions the 107th missing regiment and everything changes. 

They end up missing their next performance.

* * *

“So are you two, do you…fondue?”

You bite the smirk growing on your lips back. You try, you really do, to keep it hidden from your best friend as you duck your head down and angle your face away from Steve who’s sitting beside you. Managing to catch Peggy’s eye, you violently choke down a giggle.

“Y/n where did you get that suit?” Peggy asks in an odd fluster as she hands Steve his tracking device to use when you want to be picked up, easily controlling the emotion bubbling behind her eyes as her and Steve’s fingers brush when she pulls away to sit back in her seat.

“It’s one of Steve’s backups," You say only after clearing your throat. Twice. "I had sewed it down to my size back when I tired to convince our manger to let me wear it instead of the baby doll get-up they have me in now. The proposition was obviously turned down but I kept it just in case." You groan then, and in an exaggerated comical way you deepen your voice as you sit back and spread your legs like men do on every surface they sit on, "Its nice to not have to cross my legs when I sit.” 

Steve and Peggy laugh, the noise warms your heart. 

“Too bad they didn’t have an extra shield,” Steve remarks after the atmosphere tenses back up a bit with the impending mission.

You shrug, “It’s alright, I stole this metal pole from one of the tents. Should be fun to wack some Nazi’s in the face.”

* * *

Steve silently worries about her.

Yes, she is a supersoldier and is just as strong, if not stronger than he is, but she never fought a day in her life. Steve on the other hand has suffered through countless fist fights and went through training at the military base, but Y/n? She hasn’t experienced any of it, let alone how to fight with a weapon.

Steve didn’t know that Erskine put Y/n through training of her own. Private training, since her Daddy didn’t want the shame of having a ‘tomboy’ for a daughter.

That was the first and last time Steve Rogers ever underestimated Y/n Y/l/n.

* * *

“And who are you guys supposed to be?”

“Um, Captain America,” Steve answers the men in metal cages below them, a touch distracted as he searches for a way to free them.

You roll your eyes, what a drama king.

“Miss America I guess.” You answer with a shrug, following Steve’s stage name introduction. 

“Uh, beg your pardon?” One of the American prisoners says as the two of you snatch the keys off the guard that you knock out with your pole, a muted metal bong noise echoing in the warehouse as you both scurry down to unlock everyone.

“Is there anybody else?” Steve asks, his anxiety only seeming to rise as men start pilling out of their prison cells. “I’m looking for a Sergeant James Barnes.”

Oh. 

You've never seen Steve so torn by determination and fear apart from the day you both got injected with the serum. The name James Barnes ignites a fire in Steve that you knew was always there but never saw _burn_ until now.

“There’s an isolation ward, but no one’s ever come back from it.” One of them answer, everyone crowding around Steve and you as you both start divvying out instructions on where and how to get out and meet up.

“Wait,” Another soldier calls causing both of you to stop your departure deeper into the prison. You turn and stand side by side to face the wall of wary soldiers. “You guys know what you’re doin?”

“Yeah,” Steve huffs, “We’ve knocked out Adolf Hitler over one hundred times.”

“Actually, over two hundred times Stevie.” You correct softly from Steve’s side, ignoring the incredulous looks the men are giving your body showcased in the tight body suit. It’s a pretty scandalous thing to wear as a lady, but you ain’t no lady. Not anymore.

Steve turns to you, after a moment you both shrug, then promptly turn back to face the men. You both spare only one more second of staring before swiveling on your heels and jogging off towards the isolation ward the soldiers directed you to. You thought about staying behind and leading the men, making sure they all got out safely, but quite honestly there wasn’t a single part of you that could bare the idea of leaving Steve. Not because you're scared to be on your own, but because you want to make sure Steve doesn’t do anything stupid.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Share them below if you would like! xx


End file.
